my particular area was medieval/postmedieval Northern European shipwrecks
But that's one of the most interesting parts of the field. The Baltic sea has too little salt for most ocean life, and too much salt for most lake life. In particular, nothing that eats sunken wood can live there. So the Baltic is pretty much the only place in the world to find ancient ships. Most of them aren't even discovered yet, much less taken ashore.
Hehe. You certainly have a vivid imagination about my work life! You're basically right about testing procedures etc, except it doesn't apply in cases like this.
These are a few isolated bugs, not significant changes to the software. Standard procedure in the business when you've released software that's disastrously broken for some set of customers, is to rush out a bugfix release to them, often within days. Not three months.
There is no need to develop and test an upgrade proceedure that will work on every single variation of every machine in existance, since only a small identifiable subset of the machines have this problem. According to the Tivolutionary explanation, the reason this happened was just that they didn't test for these cases.
Further according to the explanation, they do have a state for this category of users in the code. They obviously have both the new and the old code. So the fixes would be to insert code like this in about 5 places.
But I've noticed a product out there that does fit my needs. WinTV-Personal Video Recorder card from Hauppage.
It sounds intriguing. Does everything TiVo does that I want, but also includes a capability to archive recordings to Video-CD
The problem with that kind of solution is that you either have to buy a PC to run them on, which makes it way more expensive than a Tivo, with far less functionality, or you'll have a next to unusable PC anytime it records something.
So they sabotage the property of thousands of people, and now they expect them to be happy by a "we didn't mean to", and "you'll get your stuff working in 3 months again".
Imagine a car dealership popping the tires of your new car after a few months since you didn't pay for the extended insurance! It has to be illegal, and they should consider how amused a judge would be by their childish excuses.
Saying they'll fix it in 3 months is not nearly good enough. They should fix it ASAP. I'm a software engineer, and if those changes takes three months to do, there is no hope for their software. A week is more likely. And meanwhile, these people should get the subscription for free.
I'm a very happy Tivo owner (and less happy stockholder:-), and this is pretty out of character for them. My guess, having been through a few startups myself, is that since the company isn't doing so well, they've hired some hardasshole business people to make more money by becoming more ruthless.
According to the EFF web site, their yearly budget is only $2M, which is less than nothing compared to the giant bullies they're fighting. So if you have any money to donate, they do count!
I'm surprised to see many responses on the old disgraced theme of only those who have something to hide should be worried.
At least apply the same question to Echelon itself. If they're only doing good things with this, why is this done in total secret? Surely if they had nothing to hide, they would welcome doing this as publicly as the FBI, just to take an example?
The 15 EU countries are a bit more homogenous than the entire continent, but not by all that much. A bit richer and more democratic tradition on average. Culturally they are pretty much as diverse an any collection of countries.
They do have the EU membership in common, obviously, but that doesn't mean all that much. EU holds about 1% of the power over the members as the US federal government, and it's "directives" are routinely ignored by those states who feel like it. There may be a bill of rights somewhere, but I've never heard of it. I'd guess every country already had abolished the death penalty, so they could make that an EU rule and pretend they had achieved something.
Usually when you actually can say "But all over Europe they don't have X", that only means that the US is pretty much the only place where X is common. So it's more a statement about the US than about Europe.
One of the more annoying things about americans is how they think Europe is one place with one culture. Europe is 50 very different countries with very different cultures and political systems. There is pretty much nothing you can say that is true for all of them.
If you read/. you may get the impression that Europe is hard core on privacy since they report on some EU legislation from time to time. That's merely scratching the surface of one of many different sides of that issue.
The average US/. reader would be stunned and horrified by the lack of privacy in my home country. The government knows pretty much everything about you. Just one example: everyones tax return is a public document that can be requested from the government by anyone. Books are published with the details of the incomes of the wealthy and famous, and the press routinely digs out those facts.
Dont get me wrong. I'm a Swede who has been in the US for 6 years, and I like the place and the people.
I can't really speak for the rest of the world, but certainly in the parts of Europe where I'm from, hardly anybody buys a region coded DVD player. People won't buy them so the merchants don't sell them.
In the US it's different. The main reason for the coding is to stop the rest of the world to get access to cheap US DVDs before the studios want it. This seems to be failing (see above). For people in the US, it makes little sense to try to beat that system, since they already have access to almost everythig, at among the lowest prices in the world.
Sorry, I was referring to whether the Mead study was fraudulent or not, not at all to your question.
Regarding your question, I would guess not, or we'd be hearing about them all the time. That the attitude is completely different in Sweden where I grew up, also indicates that this is a cultural, not a scientific thing.
Meads Samoa book has been seriously questioned lately. Others have looked into her claims, and it seems she was more projecting her own wishes than actually investigating the society. Others claim otherwise, so I don't think it can be seen as an established fraud, just seriously questioned.
Here is a link http://hasmoneaus.jour.sc.edu/papers/2000mead.html
You can find many more by searching for "mead samoa freeman" at your nearest Google.
As the article mentions, it identifies the stations itself. I think it's safe to assume that it doesn't have some AI program determining that it probably hears an N'Sync song and that therefore station XYZ is probably on. Presumably it recognizes some humanly inaudible signal sent out by participating stations.
It does not record all sound and download it to a central every week. Apart from the privacy problems, that design simply wouldn't work.
You don't need sensors to jack up the price when demand rises or supply goes down. Merchants have always done that, and always will. Heck, consumers do the same thing, and pay less when there is bigger supply.
And it's a good thing. It's how resources get allocated to where there is the biggest demand for them, and how a market system avoids shortages and surpluses. In the coke machine example that would mean that you got to the machine that hot day, it charged $1.25 as always, and was completely out of coke.
BTW, I thought those "evil coke machines" were an urban myth from a year or two ago?
I doubt that. But even if your premise is correct you'd have to add the time for rewriting all their software for Windows or Linux. Let's not even start thinking about if some of that is commercial software.
...since you can't buy these machines in any other casings that tower or cube. I doubt that it pays off for 64 machines.
How much extra does the case cost? It's just a few pieces of cheap plastic. And the extra features (handles & door) makes it a lot easier to work with than the standard beige box.
I see a lot of posts complaining about the cases, of all things. I don't think this crowd is really upset about the cost. I think it's that they just can't stand functional things being beautiful. And that's very sad.
If you're making a conscious decision you would of course lock your door while on vacation. But if you didn't, it sure would be nice if the first stranger who discovered it locked it for you, and checked the gas and watered the plants while he was at it.
It's a bit like someone turning in a wallet he found instead of keeping the money for himself.
I thought the same thing. An American and two Russians build a table, and the US media makes it sound like the American did all the thinking and planning and had the brilliant crafty initiative.
Maybe that was the case, but I don't know how CNN would have known. It was built in secret, after all.
I usually try to call the 1-800 if they give one and I feel vengeful. Anyone know how much they pay for each call? Anyone got software that keeps calling them through the night? Is that somehow illegal?
Slashdot Mirror
As the know-it-all showoff I am...
my particular area was medieval/postmedieval Northern European shipwrecks
But that's one of the most interesting parts of the field. The Baltic sea has too little salt for most ocean life, and too much salt for most lake life. In particular, nothing that eats sunken wood can live there. So the Baltic is pretty much the only place in the world to find ancient ships. Most of them aren't even discovered yet, much less taken ashore.
Hehe. You certainly have a vivid imagination about my work life! You're basically right about testing procedures etc, except it doesn't apply in cases like this.
These are a few isolated bugs, not significant changes to the software. Standard procedure in the business when you've released software that's disastrously broken for some set of customers, is to rush out a bugfix release to them, often within days. Not three months.
There is no need to develop and test an upgrade proceedure that will work on every single variation of every machine in existance, since only a small identifiable subset of the machines have this problem. According to the Tivolutionary explanation, the reason this happened was just that they didn't test for these cases.
Further according to the explanation, they do have a state for this category of users in the code. They obviously have both the new and the old code. So the fixes would be to insert code like this in about 5 places.
if (oldNoSub)
old code;
else
new code;
But I've noticed a product out there that does fit my needs. WinTV-Personal Video Recorder card from Hauppage.
It sounds intriguing. Does everything TiVo does that I want, but also includes a capability to archive recordings to Video-CD
The problem with that kind of solution is that you either have to buy a PC to run them on, which makes it way more expensive than a Tivo, with far less functionality, or you'll have a next to unusable PC anytime it records something.
So they sabotage the property of thousands of people, and now they expect them to be happy by a "we didn't mean to", and "you'll get your stuff working in 3 months again".
:-), and this is pretty out of character for them. My guess, having been through a few startups myself, is that since the company isn't doing so well, they've hired some hardasshole business people to make more money by becoming more ruthless.
Imagine a car dealership popping the tires of your new car after a few months since you didn't pay for the extended insurance! It has to be illegal, and they should consider how amused a judge would be by their childish excuses.
Saying they'll fix it in 3 months is not nearly good enough. They should fix it ASAP. I'm a software engineer, and if those changes takes three months to do, there is no hope for their software. A week is more likely. And meanwhile, these people should get the subscription for free.
I'm a very happy Tivo owner (and less happy stockholder
According to the EFF web site, their yearly budget is only $2M, which is less than nothing compared to the giant bullies they're fighting. So if you have any money to donate, they do count!
...remember when the US invaded another country, killing hundreds of innocent people, to arrest a suspected drug dealer?
I'm surprised to see many responses on the old disgraced theme of only those who have something to hide should be worried.
At least apply the same question to Echelon itself. If they're only doing good things with this, why is this done in total secret? Surely if they had nothing to hide, they would welcome doing this as publicly as the FBI, just to take an example?
The 15 EU countries are a bit more homogenous than the entire continent, but not by all that much. A bit richer and more democratic tradition on average. Culturally they are pretty much as diverse an any collection of countries.
They do have the EU membership in common, obviously, but that doesn't mean all that much. EU holds about 1% of the power over the members as the US federal government, and it's "directives" are routinely ignored by those states who feel like it. There may be a bill of rights somewhere, but I've never heard of it. I'd guess every country already had abolished the death penalty, so they could make that an EU rule and pretend they had achieved something.
Usually when you actually can say "But all over Europe they don't have X", that only means that the US is pretty much the only place where X is common. So it's more a statement about the US than about Europe.
Thanx for letting me rant. I feel better now.
One of the more annoying things about americans is how they think Europe is one place with one culture. Europe is 50 very different countries with very different cultures and political systems. There is pretty much nothing you can say that is true for all of them.
/. you may get the impression that Europe is hard core on privacy since they report on some EU legislation from time to time. That's merely scratching the surface of one of many different sides of that issue.
/. reader would be stunned and horrified by the lack of privacy in my home country. The government knows pretty much everything about you. Just one example: everyones tax return is a public document that can be requested from the government by anyone. Books are published with the details of the incomes of the wealthy and famous, and the press routinely digs out those facts.
If you read
The average US
Dont get me wrong. I'm a Swede who has been in the US for 6 years, and I like the place and the people.
it's because they told FTC that they would not sell the data.
That just makes it more confusing, doesn't it...
I can't really speak for the rest of the world, but certainly in the parts of Europe where I'm from, hardly anybody buys a region coded DVD player. People won't buy them so the merchants don't sell them.
In the US it's different. The main reason for the coding is to stop the rest of the world to get access to cheap US DVDs before the studios want it. This seems to be failing (see above). For people in the US, it makes little sense to try to beat that system, since they already have access to almost everythig, at among the lowest prices in the world.
Sorry, I was referring to whether the Mead study was fraudulent or not, not at all to your question.
Regarding your question, I would guess not, or we'd be hearing about them all the time. That the attitude is completely different in Sweden where I grew up, also indicates that this is a cultural, not a scientific thing.
Meads Samoa book has been seriously questioned lately. Others have looked into her claims, and it seems she was more projecting her own wishes than actually investigating the society. Others claim otherwise, so I don't think it can be seen as an established fraud, just seriously questioned.
l
Here is a link http://hasmoneaus.jour.sc.edu/papers/2000mead.htm
You can find many more by searching for "mead samoa freeman" at your nearest Google.
As the article mentions, it identifies the stations itself. I think it's safe to assume that it doesn't have some AI program determining that it probably hears an N'Sync song and that therefore station XYZ is probably on. Presumably it recognizes some humanly inaudible signal sent out by participating stations.
It does not record all sound and download it to a central every week. Apart from the privacy problems, that design simply wouldn't work.
You don't need sensors to jack up the price when demand rises or supply goes down. Merchants have always done that, and always will. Heck, consumers do the same thing, and pay less when there is bigger supply.
And it's a good thing. It's how resources get allocated to where there is the biggest demand for them, and how a market system avoids shortages and surpluses. In the coke machine example that would mean that you got to the machine that hot day, it charged $1.25 as always, and was completely out of coke.
BTW, I thought those "evil coke machines" were an urban myth from a year or two ago?
We agree on the facts then. I wouldn't call that a law, but I guess you can, and if you do, your formulation is correct.
I doubt that. But even if your premise is correct you'd have to add the time for rewriting all their software for Windows or Linux. Let's not even start thinking about if some of that is commercial software.
...since you can't buy these machines in any other casings that tower or cube. I doubt that it pays off for 64 machines.
How much extra does the case cost? It's just a few pieces of cheap plastic. And the extra features (handles & door) makes it a lot easier to work with than the standard beige box.
I see a lot of posts complaining about the cases, of all things. I don't think this crowd is really upset about the cost. I think it's that they just can't stand functional things being beautiful. And that's very sad.
For example, legalizing drugs would happen by repealing the laws banning drug use, not by adding new laws permitting use.
If you're making a conscious decision you would of course lock your door while on vacation. But if you didn't, it sure would be nice if the first stranger who discovered it locked it for you, and checked the gas and watered the plants while he was at it.
It's a bit like someone turning in a wallet he found instead of keeping the money for himself.
No.
The problem is too many laws and government acting as proxy for the highest paying industry. The solution isn't more laws, but less.
Legalize Freedom!
I don't understand in what way .com and .biz are supposed to be different. If something is commercial is it not also a business?
I thought the same thing. An American and two Russians build a table, and the US media makes it sound like the American did all the thinking and planning and had the brilliant crafty initiative.
Maybe that was the case, but I don't know how CNN would have known. It was built in secret, after all.
I usually try to call the 1-800 if they give one and I feel vengeful. Anyone know how much they pay for each call? Anyone got software that keeps calling them through the night? Is that somehow illegal?
That's pretty bad. They're a pretty established and legitimate company. Looks like spam is getting mainstream.
Subject was "Your Family Trip" if you want to compare notes.